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			 Date | 
			 Event(s) | 
		
	
| 1  | 1889  | - 1889: Celluloid film produced
 
- 1889: Dock Strike – docker's won their "Docker's Tanner", 6 old pennies
 
- 31 Mar 1889: Eiffel Tower completed (to mark centenary of French Revolution)
 
- 14 May 1889: Children's charity NSPCC launched in London
 
- 3 Jun 1889: Canadian Pacific Railway completed from coast to coast
 
- 28 Sep 1889: Length of a metre defined
 
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| 2  | 1890  | - 4 Mar 1890: Forth railway bridge opens – took six years to build
 
- 4 Nov 1890: City & South London Railway opens – London's first deep-level tube railway
and first major railway in the world to use electric traction
 
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| 3  | 1891  | - 1891: Primary education made free and compulsory
 
- 18 Mar 1891: First telephone link between London & Paris
 
- 4 May 1891: Fictional date when Sherlock Holmes throws Moriarty over Reichenbach Falls, then disappears for 3 years! (published in 1893)
 
- 24 Aug 1891: Thomas Edison patents the motion picture camera
 
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| 4  | 1892  | - 1892: Electric oven invented
 
- 1892: Shop Hours Act – limit 74 hours per week for under-18's
 
- 6 Oct 1892: Alfred Lord Tennyson dies, aged 83, at his house Aldworth, near Haslemere
 
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| 5  | 1893  | - 1893: Henry Ford's first car
 
- 1893: Zip fastener invented
 
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| 6  | 1894  | - 1894: Picture postcard introduced in Britain
 
- 1 Jan 1894: Manchester Ship Canal opens
 
- 1 Mar 1894: Blackpool Tower opens
 
- 30 Jun 1894: Tower Bridge first opens
 
- 2 Aug 1894: Death duties first introduced in Britain
 
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| 7  | 1895  | - 1895: Sir Henry Wood starts Promenade Concerts in London
 
- 12 Jan 1895: The National Trust founded in England
 
- 24 May 1895: Henry Irving becomes the first person from the theatre to be knighted
 
- 28 May 1895: Oscar Wilde sent to prison
 
- 12 Jul 1895: First recorded motor journey of any length (56 miles) in Britain
 
- 17 Oct 1895: First people in Britain to be charged with motor offences – John Henry Knight and James Pullinger of Farnham, Surrey
 
- Nov 1895: X-rays discovered
 
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| 8  | 1896  | - 5 Apr 1896: First modern Olympic Games held in Athens
 
- 2 Jun 1896: Guglielmo Marconi receives a British patent (later disputed) for the radio
 
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| 9  | 1897  | - 1897: Thomas Edison patents the Kinetoscope, the first movie projector
 
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| 10  | 1898  | - 1898: First photograph using artificial light
 
- 1898: Zeppelin builds airship
 
- 1898: Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company founded
 
- 17 Mar 1898: USS Holland launched, the first practical submarine
 
- 27 Jun 1898: The first solo circumnavigation of the globe completed at Rhode island by
Joshua Slocum in Spray (started from Boston, Mass on Apr 24, 1895)
 
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| 11  | 1899  | - 6 Mar 1899: Aspirin first marketed by Bayer
 
- 11 Oct 1899: Start of Second Boer War
 
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| 12  | 1900  | - 1900: School leaving age in Britain raised to 14 years
 
- 1900: Central Line opens in London: underground is electrified
 
- 1900: Escalator shown at Paris exhibition
 
- 9 Feb 1900: Davis Cup tennis competition established
 
- 27 Feb 1900: Labour Party formed
 
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| 13  | 1901  | - 1901: Commonwealth of Australia founded
 
- 1901: Hubert Cecil Booth patents the vacuum cleaner
 
- 22 Jan 1901: Queen Victoria dies – Edward VII king
 
- 2 Feb 1901: Queen Victoria's funeral – interred beside Prince Albert in the Frogmore
Mausoleum at Windsor Great Park
 
- Jun 1901: Denunciation of use of concentration camps by British in Boer War
 
- 2 Oct 1901: Britain's first submarine launched
 
- 12 Dec 1901: First successful radio transmission across the Atlantic, by Marconi – Morse
code from Cornwall to Newfoundland
 
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| 14  | 1902  | - 1902: Balfour's Education Act provides for secondary education
 
- 1902: Cremation Act – cremation can only take place at officially recognised establishments,
and with two death certificates issued
 
- 1902: Marie Curie discovers radioactivity
 
- 24 May 1902: Empire Day (later Commonwealth Day) first celebrated
 
- 31 May 1902: Treaty of Vereeniging ends Second Boer War
 
- 9 Aug 1902: Coronation of Edward VII
 
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| 15  | 1903  | - 1903: Workers' Education Association (WEA) formed in Britain
 
- 1903: Women's Social and Political Union formed in Britain by Emmeline Pankhurst
 
- 1903: Henry Ford sets up his motor company
 
- 14 Dec 1903: First flight of Wilbur & Orville Wright
 
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| 16  | 1904  | - 1904: Leeds University established
 
- 8 Apr 1904: France and UK sign the Entente Cordiale
 
- 4 May 1904: America takes over construction of the Panama Canal from the French
(completed 1914)
 
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| 17  | 1905  | - 1905: The title 'Prime Minister' noted in a royal warrant for the first time – placed the Prime
Minister in order of precedence in Britain immediately after the Archbishop of York
 
- 1905: Aliens Act in Britain: Home Office controls immigration
 
- 1905: Germany lays down the first Dreadnought battleship
 
- 11 Apr 1905: Einstein publishes Special Theory of Relativity
 
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| 18  | 1906  | - 1906: Introduction of free school meals for poor children
 
- 10 Feb 1906: Launching of HMS Dreadnought, first turbine-driven battleship
 
- 15 Mar 1906: Rolls-Royce Ltd registered
 
- 26 May 1906: Vauxhall Bridge opened in London
 
- 20 Sep 1906: Launching of Cunard's RMS Mauretania on the Tyne
 
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| 19  | 1907  | - 1907: New Zealand becomes a Dominion
 
- 1907: Imperial College, London, is established
 
- 1907: First airship flies over London
 
- 1907: Lumiere develops a process for colour photography
 
- Jul 1907: Leo Hendrik Baekeland patents Bakelite, the first plastic invented that held its
shape after being heated
 
- 1 Aug 1907: Baden-Powell leads the first Scout camp on Brownsea Island
 
- 9 Nov 1907: The Cullinan Diamond presented to Edward VII on his birthday
 
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| 20  | 1908  | - 1908: Coal Mines Regulation Act in Britain limits men to an eight hour day
 
- 1908: Separate courts for juveniles established in Britain
 
- 1908: Lord Baden-Powell starts the Boy Scout movement
 
- 1 Jul 1908: SOS became effective as an international signal of distress
 
- 12 Aug 1908: First 'Model T' Ford made
 
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| 21  | 1909  | - 1909: Beveridge Report prompts creation of labour Exchanges
 
- 1909: Peary reaches the north pole
 
- 1909: First commercial manufacture of Bakelite – start of the plastic age
 
- 1 Jan 1909: Old Age Pensions Act came into force
 
- 16 Jan 1909: Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole
 
- 15 Mar 1909: Selfridges department store opens in London
 
- 25 Jul 1909: Bleriot flies across the Channel (36 minutes, Calais to Dover)
 
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| 22  | 1910  | - 1910: Railway strike and coal strikes in Britain
 
- 1910: Constitutional crisis in Britain
 
- 1910: Dr Crippen caught by radio telegraphy; hanged 23 Nov at Pentonville
 
- 1910: Madame Curie isolates radium
 
- 1910: Halley's comet reappears
 
- 1910: Tango becomes popular in North America and Europe
 
- 6 May 1910: Edward VII dies – George V becomes King
 
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| 23  | 1911  | - 1911: Parliament Act in Britain reduces the power of the House of Lords
 
- 1911: British MPs receive a salary
 
- 1911: First British Official Secrets Act
 
- 1911: Rutherford: theory of atomic structures
 
- 1911: Strikes by seamen, dock and transport workers (1911-1912)
 
- 2 Apr 1911: Census: Population - England and Wales: 36 Million; Scotland: 4.6 Million; N Ireland: 1.25 Million
 
- 22 Jun 1911: Coronation of George V
 
- 14 Dec 1911: National Insurance introduced in Britain
 
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| 24  | 1912  | - 1912: Irish Home Rule crisis grows in Britain
 
- 1912: Britain nationalises the telephone system
 
- 1912: Discovery of the 'Piltdown Man' – hoax, exposed in 1953
 
- 18 Jan 1912: Captain Scott's last expedition – he and his team reach the south pole on Jan
18th; all die on the way back, their bodies found in November
 
- 14 Apr 1912: The 'unsinkable' Titanic sinks on maiden voyage – loss of 1,513 lives
 
- 13 May 1912: Royal Flying Corps (later the RAF) founded in Britain
 
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| 25  | 1913  | - 1913: Third Irish Home Rule Bill rejected by House of Lords – threat of civil war in Ireland –
formation of Ulster Volunteers to oppose Home Rule
 
- 1913: Suffragette demonstrations in London – Mrs Pankhurst imprisoned
 
- 1913: Trade Union Act in Britain establishes the right to use Union funds for political
purposes
 
- 1913: Invention of stainless steel by Harry Brearley of Sheffield
 
- 1913: Geiger invents his counter to measure radioactivity
 
- 4 Jun 1913: Emily Davison, a suffragette, runs out in front of the king's horse, Anmer, at the
Epsom Derby and dies
 
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| 26  | 1914  | - 1914: Irish Home Rule Act provides for a separate Parliament in Ireland; the position of Ulster
to be decided after the War
 
- 1914: Chaplin and De Mille make their first films
 
- 28 Jun 1914: Archduke Ferdinand assassinated in Sarajevo
 
- 4 Aug 1914: Britain declares war on Germany, citing Belgian neutrality as reason
 
- 5 Aug 1914: British cableship Telconia cut through all five of Germany's undersea telegraph
links to the outside world
 
- 15 Aug 1914: Panama Canal opened, the Canal cement boat 'Ancon' making the first official
transit (plans for a grand opening were cancelled due to the start of WW1)
 
- Oct 1914: Battle of Ypres – beginning of trench warfare on western front
 
- 27 Nov 1914: First policewoman goes on duty in Britain
 
- 16 Dec 1914: German battleships bombard Hartlepool and Scarborough
 
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| 27  | 1915  | - 1915: Junkers construct first fighter aeroplane
 
- 1915: First automatic telephone exchange in Britain
 
- 19 Jan 1915: First Zeppelin air raid on England, over East Anglia – four killed
 
- Feb 1915: Submarine blockade of Britain starts
 
- Apr 1915: Second Battle of Ypres – poison gas used for first time
 
- 25 Apr 1915: Gallipoli campaign starts (declared ANZAC Day in 1916)
 
- 7 May 1915: RMS Lusitania sunk by German submarine off coast of Ireland – 1,198 died
 
- 16 May 1915: First meeting of a British WI (Women's Institute) took place in Llanfairpwll
(aka Llanfair PG), Anglesey
 
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| 28  | 1916  | - 1916: Compulsory military service introduced in Britain
 
- Feb 1916: Battle of Verdun – appalling losses on both sides, stalemate continues
 
- 24 Apr 1916: Easter Rising in Ireland – after the leaders are executed, public opinion backs
independence
 
- 21 May 1916: First use of Daylight Saving Time in UK
 
- 31 May 1916: Battle of Jutland – only major naval battle between the British and
German fleets
 
- 5 Jun 1916: Sinking of HMS Hampshire and death of Kitchener
 
- 3 Aug 1916: Sir Roger Casement hanged at Pentonville Prison for treason
 
- 15 Sep 1916: First use of tanks in battle, but of limited effect (Battle of the Somme 1 July to 18 Nov: over 1 million casualties)
 
- 7 Dec 1916: Lloyd-George becomes British Prime Minister of the coalition government
 
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